Awesome city Surat is.Very clean and well managed city.Metro cities must learn from this mini metro.I was under the impression that pune is the next metro of west but surat just made me rethink.Surat is miles ahead of pune.

Awesome city Surat is.Very clean and well managed city.Metro cities must learn from this mini metro.I was under the impression that pune is the next metro of west but surat just made me rethink.Surat is miles ahead of pune.

Your City Mysore and My city Surat is unlucky because of their location and does not get wht they deserve.... for Mysore as Banglore is very near and for Surat Mumbai & Ahmedabad so no flights,delayed projects etc etcc

This city is the future of west India.Yes the present flight schedule is not doing justice to the city`s image.Surat needs more flights.I am sure this city will see better air connectivity soon.Just wait for IT to set its foot in surat,and u wil c things happening

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This city is the future of west India.Yes the present flight schedule is not doing justice to the city`s image.Surat needs more flights.I am sure this city will see better air connectivity soon.Just wait for IT to set its foot in surat,and u wil c things happening

Big corporates and IT is staying away from city due to lack of air connectivity

Now that we have a "discussions" thread for Surat, lets try to keep the projects thread for projects and move personal opinions/commentary into this thread instead. ie:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cosmicbliss

Surat has miles to go and the GoG is hyping up everything out of all proportion. Too much hype and not much to show on the ground.

When was the last time you visited Surat? Or Gujarat for that matter, seeing as you have so much to say about the state, its cities, its development and of course its Government.

Do you have any pics like Akash does to back up your suggestions that nothing is actually going on? Even the most pissed off Surtis are claiming unfair treatment by Government preventing Surat from growing at its full potential, which is very different to saying that the city is underdeveloped. So Im genuinely interested to know what you are basing your views on.

SURAT: The diamond city's glitter has been noticed by the world. Surat ranks fourth in a global study of fastest developing cities conducted by The City Mayors Foundation, an international think tank on urban affairs.

Ghaziabad stands at number two after Beihai in Southern China, which has the stupendous average annual growth rate of 10.58 per cent for 2006 to 2020. Ghaziabad's growth rate is given as 5.20 per cent. The City Mayors Foundation went by assumed annual growth rates for cities and urban areas between 2006 and 2020 based on past growth/decline and forecasts by international and national statistics organizations.

Three other Gujarat cities also figure in the top 100; Rajkot placed at 22 , Ahmedabad at 73 and Vadodara at 86. While the average annual growth rate for Surat is 4.99 per cent, that for Rajkot is 3.63 per cent, Ahmedabad (2.73 per cent) and Vadodara (2.55 per cent).

The third fastest developing city in the list is Sana'a in Yemen (5.00 per cent) while the fifth spot went to Kabul (4.47 per cent). New Delhi figures at spot no 22 (3.48), Faridabad at no 8 (4.44 per cent) and Agra at 53 (2.93 per cent). Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai do not figure in the top 100. However, smaller cities around Mumbai have made the grade; Nashik is no 16 (3.90 per cent) and Pune is no 29 (3.46 per cent). In its analysis, The City Mayors Foundation has said, "Many of the world's fastest growing cities are among the best managed.

They have created opportunities for improving quality of life without increasing resource use and environmental problems. How they are governed and planned further will become increasingly important in coming years." Only cities with more than a million or 10 lakh population were taken in to account. Surat's population, according to the 2011 census, stands at 44.82 lakh. All the other top five cities have much smaller populations. In fact, smaller cities have made it to the list of top 100 because their growth rates are higher.

Mayor Raju Desai attributes it to upgradation in the main sectors of textile, diamond and embroidery. "This has resulted in these industries becoming more attractive to many and rapid development is taking place," he said.

Dr Kiran Pandya of the human resource development department of Veer Narmad South Gujarat University attributes this success mainly to forward and backward effects of investments worth crores in the city. "This type of investment in sectors like diamonds, textiles and others leads to development. Other factors like very little law and order problems and minimum labour troubles help the rate of growth. Easy accessibility of raw material from nearby clusters and best civic governance in the country has also helped Surat achieve these world standards."

Shivanand Swami of the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad who worked on many development projects in Surat, said, "I will attribute this to people, local governance and than state government. Utilization of available resources properly is very important and that has worked in Surat's case."

Surat's director of planning Jivan Patel said, "Absence of political environment helps the economic growth and development the most. In Surat, people are business oriented and traditionally this city has been a trade hub from centuries. People here have inherited this culture of trade and that has paid dividends." "If you look at the sectors that have contributed to success story of the city, they are non conventional sectors like diamonds, art silk and zari,'' opined city engineer Jain Shah. According to him the workforce of these sectors has proved that if the right infrastructure, environment and basic services are provided properly they flourish. "This has resulted in zero unemployment despite very heavy migration and population growth in last 20 years.''

Now that we have a "discussions" thread for Surat, lets try to keep the projects thread for projects and move personal opinions/commentary into this thread instead. ie:

When was the last time you visited Surat? Or Gujarat for that matter, seeing as you have so much to say about the state, its cities, its development and of course its Government.

Do you have any pics like Akash does to back up your suggestions that nothing is actually going on? Even the most pissed off Surtis are claiming unfair treatment by Government preventing Surat from growing at its full potential, which is very different to saying that the city is underdeveloped. So Im genuinely interested to know what you are basing your views on.

When I said hyping up, I didn't mean that the city is underdeveloped. Can you show me where I said "Surat is backward"?

What I meant simply was that relative to its potential, relative to its capacity to being a Metro City, I feel Surat was/is lagging somewhere. Let me start from the top.

Take Pune for example. The number of five-star hotels in the city is certainly more than in Surat. In addition, there are a number of very good educational institutes (Symbiosis prominent among them) which attract students and create a workforce too. These kind of institutes seem to be lacking in Surat, barring the NIT. Take BPOs, or KPOs, or IT or BT. In these respects, Pune is ahead of Surat.
All that doesn't mean Surat is backward, not at all. I have said that GJ is not developing. It is-and hats off to the GoG for it. What I meant is while it is indeed fast developing, it lags behind Pune in several areas. In that sense it still has a lot scope for development in areas other than diamonds and textiles.
Deep's writings on this thread capture to some extent what I feel but not entirely.

Hope that this clarifies what I meant. I hope you don't imagine that I hate Gujarat/Surat from my posts.

Now one can see Marriot entering Jaipur. Jaipur is getting a Metro and BRTS too.

When I said hyping up, I didn't mean that the city is underdeveloped. Can you show me where I said "Surat is backward"?

What I meant simply was that relative to its potential, relative to its capacity to being a Metro City, I feel Surat was/is lagging somewhere. Let me start from the top.

Take Pune for example. The number of five-star hotels in the city is certainly more than in Surat. In addition, there are a number of very good educational institutes (Symbiosis prominent among them) which attract students and create a workforce too. These kind of institutes seem to be lacking in Surat, barring the NIT. Take BPOs, or KPOs, or IT or BT. In these respects, Pune is ahead of Surat.
All that doesn't mean Surat is backward, not at all. I have said that GJ is not developing. It is-and hats off to the GoG for it. What I meant is while it is indeed fast developing, it lags behind Pune in several areas. In that sense it still has a lot scope for development in areas other than diamonds and textiles.
Deep's writings on this thread capture to some extent what I feel but not entirely.

Hope that this clarifies what I meant. I hope you don't imagine that I hate Gujarat/Surat from my posts.

Now one can see Marriot entering Jaipur. Jaipur is getting a Metro and BRTS too.

Quality of education/english speaking in Gujarat is the real issue. Lack of IT/BPO are a consequence of that, not a separate point. Lack of entertainment options for IT professionals as compared to places like Pune/Bangalore are unsurprisingly another consequence of not having IT professionals.

Lets not act as if one problem is actually 3 or 4.

Did Pune/Bangalore started off as miniature models of what they are now? With 5* hotels, bars, golf courses, luxury apartments everywhere? Or were these cities "pensioners paradises" that went through an organic growth process where the human capital led to growth of the knowledge industries and then further down the line, entertainment, leisure and real estate options fluorished due to this new demographic with relatively high disposable incomes?

It is very easy to oversimplify these things. It is also just as easy to click on various threads on this forum to see many cities currently going through different stages of that process as we speak.

We all know Jaipur is one of Indias leading tourist destinations, Surat, meanwhile, is served by one flight from Delhi, so is it meant to be a surprise that Jaipur has bigger/better hotels than Surat?

All across India, feasibility studies and planning for Metro Rail come through DMRC, which is a branch of the Central Govt controlled Indian Railways. Much like Central Govt controlled DGCA and AAI are wholly and completely responsible for current situation at Surat Airport (which they own)

Fact remains that Globally renowned IT centre Bangalore is currently the only city in India with u/c Metro Rail and a non-UPA State Govt (Not counting Chennai, as election happened after construction started)

Bottom line is once the human resource is there (or even imported from elsewhere) Knowledge Industries can start to take off in Surat. Meanwhile, how long will it take for Pune to get to the level of hard-infra that Surat has, what is the situation re Power cuts in the cities? Where are they ranked re Sanitation and Sewerage? Pune is obv never going to be able to build a Port either.

Gujarati Cities have spent this last decade building solid foundations whilst the rest of India have been racing each other to pile bricks as high as possible. It will probably not even take another decade for the best way of doing things to become completely beyond debate.

Bharatiya Janata Party will start agitation against central government for the development of Surat airport from 29th of Jul, Surat city President Purnesh Modi and Member of Parliament C.R.Patil announced today.

Narrating the details of agitation, Shri Modi said, “there will be a gathering of around 5,000 citizens of Surat at the airport on 29th. There will be a public meeting there itself. Later a representation of more than 60 persons will take a flight and leave for Delhi where it will meet central Aviation minister.”

“The central government doesn’t want Gujarat progress and Surat’s development. Therefore Deccan360′s service connecting Surat with other cities couldn’t kick off. The company was all set to begin its air service, even the tent for inauguration function was set up, however the central government didn’t want to materialize this and therefore the airline company was threatened and asked to withdraw. We are no more in mood to tolerate this anymore,” Patil further said.